I typed this out in one go and am too tired to proof read it, so i hope it makes sense.
what an adventure, to say the least, and it's still not over yet for me.
This party has been somewhat of a nightmare for me since it followed so closely on the heels of our last birthday party, so the whole ordeal was quite exhausting.
I'll start this little story on friday. Well, a little before that i guess. The plans for the weekend were that I was going to rent an RV to use as a base of operations, djs could leave their records in a safe place (with a guard at the door 24hours) and the out of town djs were booked in some rooms that I thought were on-site somewhere. anyways, as the weekend drew closer we had no luck locating an rv, so then just tried to rent a van to take the djs up and back, but because the indy here in town that weekend, no car could be located anywhere. I haven't had a car since december, so getting there and back was starting to become a real obstacle.
What I was left with was a friend of mine trying to find a car from somewhere we could borrow and another friend had offered to pick up some of the djs from the airport on friday and drive them up.
madam zu arrived thursday night, so we picked her up succesfully and checked her into a hotel downtown for the night. the plan was then to head up early friday (leave around 2pm) check her into her room so she could rest and clean up with plenty of time for her set friday night.
so around 1pm friday and went to her hotel and brought her back to my place where we waited for my friend Rick to show up with his car. My girlfriend, Robin, and her friend Holly were waiting already and they kept Zu busy playing some mario party. Hours passed by with no sign or word from Rick. a buddy of his had shown up with a hotdog cart van that we were supposed to take up as well to haul all our gear up. more hours passed with no sign of him. so by 7pm we decided just to climb into the hotdog truck and take that up. Let me explain that this truck has only 2 seats, no seatbelts, and Madam Zu, Robin and Holly were all stuck sitting in the back on coolers as seats. They rigged the back window to stay open a bit with some cardboard and a bungee cord. we were still chuckling to ourselves a bit about what an adventure this was. about 20 mins into our ride though, the truck broke down! we got stuck at Dixie and 401. We made some calls, but had no way to continue our trip, so I just called a taxi, cause it was getting so late and i knew for every hour I was missing from the party more madness would be waiting for me when i got there.
the taxi picked us up in a timely fashion and we headed up, that part was pretty uneventful, a bit of getting lost but no big deal. but as we got somewhat close the taxi driver told us he couldn't finish the trip because he didn't have enough propane to get back to toronto! when we got to the big car lineup close to the venue we had to call a second cab company to come pick us up near that tim hortons. no local cab company wanted to drive up there though because of the traffic, so i finally convinced one to do it for $50 (total taxi bill : $275). The good thing about hiring the local taxi was that she knew a back way to the venue, and we pulled up right to the front of the venue with NO traffic or stopping at all. so we got to the front unloaded all our crap got our wristbands without much hassle by now it was probably passed midnight.
I now was trying to find out where the little cabins were that my out of town djs were supposed to stay at, and I find out they're not on site, but on the main strip. I had no idea where this was, what rooms, what names they were booked under or anything. I should say that my involvement with the entire 3day was pretty mininal, and a lot of the details (even with my own tent) were left to the main organizers (Destiny and lifeforce). So i left Madam Zu at the front with Robin and Holly and went into the party to find someone who might know something about my rooms.
Now I'm running around in the dark woods trying to find one of the main promoters, needle in haystack time. in the meantime I found the hullabaloo tent which was less than half the size it was supposed to be, but that was the least of my worries at that point. I bumped into the rest of the uk boys who had been waiting for hours for me to show up and all they wanted to do was go rest. so i brought them all the front door to wait together while i hunted down the promoters again.
I finally tracked down Eryk S. but he didn't know anything about my situation. but he ran away to find out. he arrived a short while later with an address and room #s for me. since I ended up getting to the party by taxi I had no means of transportation for the djs, so my poor friend Arthur got involuntarily drafted to be our driver and took them to their hotels. I took my gear and walked back into the party to set up my tent. I set it up near the hulla tent so i could be around it at all times. but i forgot how noisy it was going to be if i needed to rest while music was playing.
about an hour later Tyler from lifeforce and Ryan from destiny see me from their golfcart and tell me they have the keys to my rooms! I'm like "oh shit". before long I spot magika and sure enough they couldn't get into their rooms. on top of that, the rooms that they were staying at were the equivalent of a LAWNMOWER SHACK. they refused to stay there, vinylgroover was demanding to be driven back to toronto. Madam Zu didn't want to spin on friday anymore because she hadn't had time to chill out. It was turning into a disaster of , oh, i can't even begin to say how large. But there was nothing we could do about their rooms at this time, driving back wasnt an option and there were no rooms to be found anywhere else.
I walked back to arthur's car where zu and groover were sleeping. At that point no one had the energy to complain anymore and they just wanted to sleep. so they took their keys and went to their rooms. I told them I'd meet them in the morning and we'd all head to the beach.
I get dominik and smithy to cover the extra time vacated by madam zu and druid not playing on friday and then i crashed in my tent.
--day 2--
I woke up around 7am and started wandering around looking for any sign of Arthur, or E-by-gum or anyone else who might have a car or know where wareabouts of my djs.
Hours pass, I decide to wait by the hulla tent hoping that someone i know would pass by. I ended up waiting the whole day there. Probably sat on the speakers for about 10 hours. at least I was able to chat with some friendly hullakids for most of the day. I was petrified that the uk djs were waiting in their shack for me to pick them up all day. I was totally stranded, it was not a good situation. I was afraid my friend arthur had gone back home to toronto due to all the stress he went through for me hauling the djs around the previous night. later in the day I heard reports that some of the djs were spotted at the beach playing soccer, so that relieved my stress somewhat. but i was still worried sick until they got to the party. turned out arthur crashed at the rooms as well and him and e-by-gum and the djs all went to the beach, so i was glad they were able to get out and enjoy themselves.
Night rolled around and this is where things were awesome. The Hullabaloo tent rocked hard all night. from beginning till morning it was rammed and going crazy. By the time I was scheduled to play I was so relieved I knew I was gonna have a wicked set, there was just too much stress in me that needed to be relieved. it was very reminiscent of how I felt at Hulla7(electric dreams) for those of you who were there and know about all the trouble we went through in the first part of the night.
then at the end of my set was that infamous moment with Robin on the mic. too say i was scared shitless of that moment would be an understatement
. I was so relieved when i realised it was a joke, although i dont t